| Panda | |
|---|---|
| |
| Location | United States 
|
| Owners | David Wu (Mashumaro) |
| Sponsors/Partners | GEICO Vertagear Twitch Meta Threads Toshiba Funimation |
| Other games | Dragon Ball FighterZ Guilty Gear Xrd Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft Heroes of the Storm Marvel Vs. Capcom Mortal Kombat Splatoon Street Fighter TEKKEN |
Panda, formerly Panda Global (PG), was a professional eSports organization based in the United States. It was co-founded by Alan Bunney (SamuraiPanda) and David Wu (Mashumaro) in June 2015 as a player-centric organization looking to help their players' careers, facilitate their goals, and promote the growth of the players' esports scene.
Panda entered the Smash scene on June 24th, 2015 after sponsoring top Super Smash Bros. 4 players ESAM and MVD, as well as SS. Since then, the company signed a multitude of other players for Smash 4, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Smash 64, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, as well as commentators, content creators, video editors, and statisticians, becoming one of the most prominent Smash organizations.
Aside from their competitive team, Panda had a division, known as PGStats, that handled tournament data, including running global power rankings for Smash 4 (PGR), Melee (MPGR), and Ultimate (PGRU). The PGStats team also ran a website, PGStats.com, which acted as a player database and hub for Smash news.
On November 18th, 2021, Panda announced a partnership with Nintendo to create the first officially-licensed North American competitive circuit.[1] This circuit was officially announced as the Panda Cup on May 26th, 2022, and was meant to take place from June 24th to December 18th, 2022. However, due to Alan Bunney's role in the Smash World Tour 2022 cancellation controversy, the Panda Cup was boycotted, leading to its eventual cancellation. In the aftermath of the controversy, Panda paused all competitive and content activities, releasing its last player, Marss, on January 16th, 2023.
On December 4th, 2023, the Panda Twitter account posted a link redirecting to a webpage. This page contained a merch section, where they sold the Panda Cup Finale jackets (that were supposed to launch alongside the event) and a single blog post informing the community of the Panda team's current situation, in which they confirmed that employees in the contents, stat and hardware divisions left, alongside most others, the whole staff being now composed of only eight members.
Current smashersEdit
|
This article or section may be out of date. (tagged November 2023) The editor who added this tag elaborates: Most staff left, though we don't have any information about those You can discuss this issue on the talk page or edit this page to bring it up to date. |
Former smashersEdit
Pro smashersEdit
| ID | Name | Game | Main(s) | Join Date | Leave Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
SS | Shane Bruce | Super Smash Bros. for Wii U |  
|
2015-06-24 | 2017-01-02 |
|
|
Trela | Alberto Miliziano | Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U |
 
|
2016-06-22 | 2017-01-02 |
|
|
Rich Brown | Rich Brown | Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U |
 
|
2017-01-17 | 2017-10-17 |
|
|
MVD | Jestise Negron | Super Smash Bros. Brawl Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
  
|
2015-06-24 | 2019-01-04 |
|
|
Wobbles | Robert Wright | Super Smash Bros. Melee | 
|
2015-11-02 | 2019-01-04 |
|
|
Zain | Zain Naghmi | Super Smash Bros. Melee | 
|
2018-04-12 | 2019-08-11 |
|
|
Cosmos | Brian Kalu | Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
 
|
2018-07-26 | 2019-08-11 |
|
SuPeRbOoMfAn | Daniel Hoyt | Super Smash Bros. |   
|
2017-01-17 | 2020-07-08 |
|
Prince | Unknown name | Super Smash Bros. | 
|
2019-07-19 | 2021-07-16 |
|
|
Plup | Justin McGrath | Super Smash Bros. Melee Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
       
|
2015-06-30 | 2022-12-02 |
|
|
iBDW | Cody Schwab | Super Smash Bros. Melee |
|
2020-05-05 | 2022-12-02 |
|
|
WaDi | Chris Boston | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |  
|
2021-04-02 | 2022-12-02 |
|
|
ESAM | Eric Lew | Super Smash Bros. Melee Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Super Smash Bros. Ultimate |
  
|
2015-06-24 | 2023-01-15 |
|
|
Marss | Tyler Martins | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | 
|
2019-03-22 | 2023-01-16 |
Other smashersEdit
Alpharad 
(content director, joined June 30th, 2016)- Bear
(Team manager, tournament director, FGC manager) - suar
(PG Stats director, joined May 7th, 2016) - Zan
(PG Stats analyst, joined May 7th, 2016) 
Tetra 
(PG Stats, joined June 2nd, 2016)
juddy (PG Stats statistician, joined June 2nd, 2016)
Stimpy 
(Actor Asa Butterfield, content creator)- FullStream
(Rivals of Aether player) - Chia
(Joined May 5th, 2020) - Simply
(Mario 64 speedrunner, content creator) - Tantalus (PG Tournament Organizer)
- turndownforwalt
(Content creator) - BobbyWasabi
(Video editor) - VikkiKitty
(Commentator, content creator) - TKbreezy
(Commentator, content creator) - Coney
(Creative Lead, commentator) - PracticalTAS (PGstats mathematician)
- Daramgaria
(Commentator, content creator) - Jackie Peanuts
(PGstats director) - Brentos
(PGstats Melee Content Writer) - Jut
(Social media manager) - Jaaahsh (Community organizer, player manager)
Little Z 
(Content creator)- KingKirb64 (PG Hardware Engineer)
- Kantrip
(Influencer; joined May 2020[2], left December 2022[3]) - Spike (PGstats designer)
- Dom
(PGstats writer, joined May 7th, 2016) - fyazko (content creator, joined June 2nd, 2016)
- Keith (lead graphics artist, project manager)
- PSI
(graphics artist)
Other famous playersEdit
- Justin Wong (JWong) FGC
- Kyohei Lehr (MarlinPie) GGXrd
- Alexandre Dub-Bilodeau (Hayatei) MK11
- Bryant Benzing (Kitana Prime) MK11
- Jachin Harte (SKD) BBCF, BBTag
- Stephen Stafford (Speedkicks) Tekken 7
- Evan Towne (Rocketek) Splatoon
- Derek Bruscas (Nakkiel) Dragon Ball FighterZ
- Victor Woodley (Punk) SF5
- Keenan Kizzie (Kizzie Kay) GGXrd, SamSho19
- Faye Mata Voice Actor
- Anna Cramling Chess
- Wolfe Glick (WolfeyVGC) Pokémon
PG KeyEdit
PG Key was an online tournament series organized by PG and directed by Bear. Each entry was a qualifier dedicated to a major offline tournament, with the winner being flown out as an honorary player temporarily sponsored by the organization.
| Tournament | Date | Entrants | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Key to The PG House | September 8th-18th, 2016 | 1994 | Wrath NA Mr.R EU |
Raffi-X NA Badr EU
|
| PG Key to GENESIS 4 | January 1st-5th, 2017 | 986 | Cosmos* |
Wrath*
|
| PG Key to Frostbite 2017 | February 12th-17th, 2017 | 740 | Cosmos* |
Zage
|
| PG Key to 2GGC: Civil War | March 5th-8th, 2017 | 620 | Sonido |
CaptainZack
|
| PG Key to Midwest Mayhem 8 | March 18th-30th, 2017 | 450 |  Sonix* |
lapis lazuli*
|
*Cosmos and Wrath were both unable to attend, so the key was passed down to the 3rd place finisher, Koolaid.
*Cosmos was unable to attend, so the key was passed down to the runner-up, Zage.
*Sonix and lapis lazuli both declined their keys, so it was passed down to the 3rd place finisher, Locus.
GalleryEdit
Panda's former logo.
